posted at 10:30 pm on June 14, 2012 by Allahpundit

In a poke at President Barack Obama, the Republican challenger timed a speech in Ohio on the economy to begin just minutes before his Democratic rival gave a major address on the same topic in the same battleground state…

Breaking from his habit of playing it safe with his media appearances, he will appear on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday and is likely to speak to other television networks he has avoided in recent weeks.

***

Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s guerrilla tactics continued Thursday, as the campaign bus circled the venue where President Barack Obama will be speaking this afternoon.

As it passed the assembled throngs of supporters awaiting entry to the event at Cuyahoga Community College, the bus honked its horn dozens of times, before circling around to do it again. Obama supporters jeered and booed each time the bus passed the line outside of the security screening area…

An Obama campaign aide responded to the Romney effort saying “that’s not our style,” adding “campaigns are a reflection of the candidate.”

During a speech at a community college in Cleveland, the president charged that Republican Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire private equity executive and former governor of Massachusetts, would hollow out the middle class.

The evening fundraiser, co-hosted by Parker’s husband, actor Matthew Broderick, and Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour, was decidedly not a showcase of all things middle class. Tickets cost $40,000 and 50 people were expected to attend.

***

But there is one group of people Obama has to listen to: the people who give him large sums of money. He recently attended his 150th fundraiser. That’s more than the number attended by the last four presidents put together…

He’s also had plenty of chances to absorb the advice of the kind of rich liberals who like to give money to Democratic presidents. And the evidence that he has taken some of that advice is his initiatives on three controversial issues, each of which involves serious political risk…

At DreamWorks Studios, Steven Spielberg spent three hours explaining how to capture an audience’s attention and offered a number of ideas that will be rolled out before Election Day. An early example of Spielberg’s influence is RomneyEconomics.com, a website designed by the Obama team to tell the story — a horror story, by their reckoning — of Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital. Afterward, Spielberg insisted that Messina sit down with the DreamWorks marketing team. Hollywood movie studios are expert, as presidential campaigns also must be, at spending huge sums over a few weeks to reach and motivate millions of Americans.

***

Prior to President Barack Obama’s marathon 54 minute speech in Ohio today, the Obama campaign sent our several statements promising the speech would be a major address framing the campaign going forward. Despite the hype, the speech was mainly a rehash of themes and ideas from the president’s recent stump speeches and his remarks were widely panned as overly long by the political press corps.

In the speech, President Obama outlined his view that this election is a choice between “two fundamentally different views of which direction America should take.” He characterized Mitt Romney’s vision as being the same as the “policies of the last decade,” specifically deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy while he described his own “vision for America” as boiling down to five things: “Education. Energy. Innovation. Infrastructure. And a tax code focused on American job creation and balanced deficit reduction.” President Obama also stressed that the economic crisis began during the Bush administration and that is “started growing again” after he took office and has since “continued to grow.”

“Now you may have heard that President Obama is on the other side of the state and he’s going to be delivering a speech on the economy. He’s doing that because he has not delivered a recovery for the economy,” Romney said during a speech in Cincinnati. “But don’t forget, he’s been president for three and a half years. And talk is cheap. Action speaks very loud.”

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Trackbacks/Pings

Comments

He can sink the economy and campaign and vacation a great deal
But taking any responsibly to him just does not appeal
He has less class than the back of a hack
When he morns for anyone but himself the tears run down his back
If he would just take responsibility sometime somewhere
The MSM frogs would probably give him the Croix-de-Guerre

.
Agreed, I was hoping for a little more back and forth with CherryBombsBigBrownBeaver so I could classify this one but he has backed off some since someone showed up who was willing to directly engage him.

November won’t be a cake walk and we can’t be complacent, but it is winnable.

AZfederalist on June 15, 2012 at 12:44 AM

i’m happy for you to jump all over any pessimism. Maybe i’m just trying to brace myself.

Here’s the deal. Given obama’s clear cut state ‘capitalism’ boosterism I’d really like for him to be down by 5 to 10 points. I realize that there’s few political junkies in the world (like those of us on HA)…but still. CA is a trainwreck. Can people really be oblivious to europe? The Soviet union crashed and burned…the PRC evolved to some sort of semi-capitalist system…albeit with a Politburo. And i know that, as Rush says, to most people history begins the day they’re born.

Barry is preaching from an old hymnal…one that has been shown empirically not to work…why in the 21st century is this country still entranced by the old snake oil. I came of age in the carter era, Lester Thurow was pushing national industrial planning…and everyone loved Keynes.

i want the old tired relics of the 19th century dreams to be done and gone

.
It should be interesting. One of the things not covered in those agreements is the candidate doing a “gotcha” to the talking head.

Romney: By the way, Bob. I just want to take a moment to congratulate Sharyl Atkisson and her team on their winning of the Murrow Award. It is a very prestigious award and it’s nice to see CBS, which was Murrow’s home, come out of its long slump in investigative journalism after the fiasco Dan Rather put it through.

Today with Marx he will brew, tomorrow with Engels he will bake
And then the hopes and dreams of millions, he will take
If not enough catch on to his sly little game
That Hussein Vissarionovich Obama is his real name!

I was stunned that he didn’t pivot when he had the chance. Several chances. It all comes down to one metric: per capita disposable income. The U.S. tolerates its boom-and-bust economy as long as we can afford to purchase our treats from time to time. Obama doesn’t get this. He didn’t study economics. He’s in serious trouble.

Palin got Palinized before barky had a record. Mitt KNOWS what he is walking in to. I can’t believe I am actually saying that, I had no faith in the man. I thought he was McCain II. I don’t think so now. The dude is firing back at every word, effectively, in real time. And attacking. He wouldn’t have had to pay me to drive the bus.

wolly4321 on June 14, 2012 at 11:58 PM

Palin was also disarmed by being the running mate and so she had to play by the inane rules that John “My Friends” McCain thought would be his key to winning at best and not getting bad press at worst which of course failed as spectacularly as grabbing a small toy shovel and building a wall out of sand on the beach to keep the tide from coming in.

Romney at least seems to get that the media isn’t some neutral player in the game and that anything positive that they praise is merely a set up to either catch a Republican off guard later or to get them to disarm themselves and play by a set of rules the other side would never think of using themselves.

..JPetermen advised us to read the comments on the Chicago Tribune article and I did. They were virtually ALL negative. I was struck with this one:

David Oil at 10:49 PM June 14, 2012

This is really starting to get old. The only people left who still support Obama are the liberal Hollywood elites and fashionistas, and they are really fattening up his wallet. Don’t forget that any campaign donations he does not spend he gets to keep. Go on Hollywood, keep making Obama one of your own 1%!!

Is it November yet?

..can someone confirm or deny David Oil’s assertion? I think unspent funds (if any) revert to the DNC do they not?

Very good points!..The scary thing is that we (USA) have almost reached the tipping point in that almost 50% do not pay for nothing or get a lot of free stuff..Once that gets to be a majority it will be very bad for our Republic and captialism..:)

..can someone confirm or deny David Oil’s assertion? I think unspent funds (if any) revert to the DNC do they not?

The War Planner on June 15, 2012 at 1:30 AM

From what I understand of campaign finance rules, he can keep that money even if when he loses the election. However, it must be used only for political campaigns, either future ones in which he would be the candidate (highly unlikely even for the narcissist Obama, you don’t lose the presidency, then run for a lower office) or for candidates you support. The latter is the likely scenario, that allows BHO to be a player even after getting booted for office by being able to fund those candidates he chooses to support.

I don’t think those funds can be used for his presidential library, but I could be wrong on that account.

I worked with a client who was a complete horn dog and dragged me into strip clubs in the middle of the flippin’ day. There is nothing quite as pathetic and seedy as the midday stripping experience. Highly recommended.

John the Libertarian on June 15, 2012 at 12:41 AM

I feel your pain. But why is it that when you learn that Jasmine’s real name is Jenny, we all feel a little like Forrest Gump?

I don’t think those funds can be used for his presidential library, but I could be wrong on that account.

AZfederalist on June 15, 2012 at 1:39 AM

..thanks, AZ and Mark (Dire). Here’s hoping Romney forces him to spend every last nickel and to go into debt. It’s be marvy to go to Chicago to see him and Moo-Chelle panhandling on the streets for chump change and sleeping on a steam grate.

I’ve gone back thru some threads he has posted on previously. He may well dislike Rmoney™. But more than anything he sounds very frustrated that the Conservative movement is failing. I’ll have to wait and see on him. Don’t worry if you end up being correct, I’ll give you props. ; )

I’ve gone back thru some threads he has posted on previously. He may well dislike Rmoney™. But more than anything he sounds very frustrated that the Conservative movement is failing. I’ll have to wait and see on him. Don’t worry if you end up being correct, I’ll give you props. ; )

How do you go back and search for someone’s posts on previous threads?

PolAgnostic on June 15, 2012 at 1:56 AM

Its easy, I have always done it when I want to see who someone is. I like to know who I dealing with. Just type HotAir (the commenters name), I use google, but I guess other search engines would work as well. You can be more specific if you add dates and such. The main reason for me to do searches is because I’m new here, so I didn’t know much about folks. Except for some of the good regulars. I had always kept up a little with the comment threads before signing on. Not as much as I do now, but enough to have a decent handle on who was who. Its how I judged whether or not someone was good for me to talk to.

I guess, maybe Allah was just cranky and mad e a mistake. He left me there for a few then came back to it. Then he deleted my comment someone had quoted. I really thought it was pretty innocuous comment. I mean I’m a guy who uses capitol i’s to say heII and HeIIfire. Go figure. Or maybe there is just no figuring sometimes. Hard to say when they don’t email you about it. Oh well, no biggy, more odd than anything really.

I just happened to have a spare Obama Head lying around. I think I’ll put it on a stick. What else can you do with spare heads that are just lying around collecting dust when you just also happen to have a spare stick as well?

I just happened to have a spare Obama Head lying around. I think I’ll put it on a stick. What else can you do with spare heads that are just lying around collecting dust when you just also happen to have a spare stick as well?

SparkPlug on June 15, 2012 at 2:15 AM

I’m thinking Pinata, birthday party in July. Mexican food and other fun stuff.

Dire, I’m glad you found it. Think of it as a safe house for when the emails pour in on us. LOL! Seriously though, don’t forget the technique for passing notes in class. And feel free to comment anytime. Or not, your choice, I know how you are. ; ) Any suggestions for improvement are always welcomed. I had originally done it like I said because of that time when predator got it. Then I was lazy and shy and didn’t until about the time cf got it. So its there. So I thought well I might as well do something with it. New paint, countertops, you know the basic fixer upper stuff. Then I got thinking well heII, might as well put some points of interest up. Start at the beginning if you have the interest and a chance and let me know what you think. Its safe. You know me Mr. Paranoid. Talk to ya tomorrow.

I’m thinking Pinata, birthday party in July. Mexican food and other fun stuff.

arnold ziffel on June 15, 2012 at 2:19 AM

Capital idea. I have a spare baseball bat and a 2 iron. I could club that head all over the neighborhood. Or rollit down the street like a bowling ball. I could get a spare with my spare Obama head, you know the one that just happened to be lying around.

just happened to have a spare Obama Head lying around. I think I’ll put it on a stick. What else can you do with spare heads that are just lying around collecting dust when you just also happen to have a spare stick as well?

SparkPlug on June 15, 2012 at 2:15 AM

.
Send it to me. I have a perfectly good pike in my front yard that is not being used.

You would be surprised to discover all the fun things you can do if you happen to be a fortunate as I and be in possession of a spare Obama head.

In a few short minutes I have tied it to a pole to play a spirited game of tether ball. Of course my neighbor happened to have a spare Obama head lying around but wasn’t very imaginative and simply fed it into a wood chipper to make mulch. I guess he rather enjoyed doing that and made a video to relive that event.

Relax, dude. I saw that thread right after your “first” got the axe, when it was still up in the other guy’s quote.

I didn’t think it was that bad, personally, and when I realized your comment had been deleted, presumably by AP, my first thought was, “WTF does he expect when he posts a Fluke story? If he is going to censor stuff that mild, he is in for a busy night.”

Looks like he got tired of deleting stuff, because some of the later stuff was worse and stayed up. At least I think it did, but I haven’t been back there since much earlier.

To get the hammer you have to do something really egregious or make a serial pest out of yourself. If you are here long enough, and you ain’t Cindy Munford, there is a good chance you will get “moderated” sooner or later.

You know how you get a tune playing in your head and it seems to stay there all day? Try a lifetime of the same melody, constantly with no respite. No wonder he’s deranged. I feel badly for the guy…honest…no, really.

“Now you may have heard that President Obama is on the other side of the state and he’s going to be delivering a speech on the economy. He’s doing that because he has not delivered a recovery for the economy,”

All Scarborough does is yell. The other people on the panel wince and look away. I can see why the ratings suck. Who wants to wake to a screaming pompous ass. I’d bet my bottom dollar NBC execs aren’t happy at all with him. I promise he has been yelling for 2 hours.

Moaning Joe panel: “It’s frustrating! All Mitt Rommey wants to do is talk about how bad things are under Obama! He won’t talk about himself!”

Marcus on June 15, 2012 at 7:09 AM

What’s frustrating them is the fact that they can’t deny just how much Obama’s performance has sucked and, apparently, Romney isn’t giving them the opportunity to engage in the last refuge of scoundrels- character assassination.

Did y’all see the Moaning Joe panel trying to put Ohio in Obama’s column? “The Governor there (Kasich) is SO unpopular.” Now mind you, they have had a nice recovery with him in office. Pretend the Wisconsin drubbing had never happened two weeks ago. “Oh, Wisconsin is in Obama’s column. The Governor there is so unpopular.”

UpChuck Todd on new polls showing Romney tied in Michigan: “Not very believable.”

How can Hollywood people be so stupid? I know some of them come from Hollywood families and are therefore steeped in stupid, but some stars grew up with somewhat normal backgrounds in other states. What happens when you get there that makes you so oblivious to real life? They say they care about the poor, but they endorse policies that destroy the chances of anyone who aspires to crawl out of poverty. I guess I’ll never understand how people think.

During a speech at a community college in Cleveland, Before heading off to yet another $40,000-a-ticket fundraiser in the multimillion-dollar home of some of his multimillionaire liberal elite supporters, the multimillionaire president charged that Republican Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire private equity executive and former governor of Massachusetts, would hollow out the middle class.

Spielberg is one of the reasons we don’t go to movies anymore. The other reason being that movies just aren’t very entertaining. The press should really be in the dumps if Oblamo starts giving 3 hour, then 5 hour speeches like Castro used to. Is Prezzy Fair Shot biting his lower lip?

It’s past time for Romney to start listing the specific spending programs and regulations that are killing this economy. He can start with Obamacare, which 75% of small businesses have said influenced their decision to not hire.

He can list the incredible waste, like that trillion dollar political slush fund known as stimulous.

He can talk about shutting down off-shore drilling and Interior land grabs and pure Keystone Cops leadership cleaning up the oil spill and rejecting the Keystone Pipeline.

Noone points out–not even the pundits–the 20% across the board increase in federal spending and the 150% increase for the facist EPA.

The socialist president and his cronies are shutting down lemonade stands and prohibiting big gulps while the Senate fiddles and Obama golfs.

Oh, and about it’s all Bush’s fault. Why are Republicans pointing out that Bush managed to keep unemployment very low even with the massive destruction of a Pearl-Harbor hit on the US and Katrina. The financial meltdown was a result of the steak dinner the Democrats ordered during the Clinton Administration—everyone should own a home even if you don’t have a job.

The specifics of this disaster are clearly identifyable and it’s waaaaay past time for Romney and the PACs to start using them. The average American has a lamentably short memory.

Oh, and about it’s all Bush’s fault. Why are Republicans pointing out that Bush managed to keep unemployment very low even with the massive destruction of a Pearl-Harbor hit on the US and Katrina. The financial meltdown was a result of the steak dinner the Democrats ordered during the Clinton Administration—everyone should own a home even if you don’t have a job.

Portia46 on June 15, 2012 at 9:21 AM

The Prezzy is actually banking on people not remembering who controlled Congress the last 2 years of Bush and painting the whole 8 years as a failure when only the last year was bad.

Obama is a true believer. He has a religious devotion to government. No facts, no experience, no consequences will shake him from his ideology. He is the opposite of pragmatic. He is a theorist with a bogus doctrine. That is why he is incapable of changing, adapting, compromising or learning.